So here she is, the queen herself, Jezebel Thunder.

okay hello i'm jessabelle thunder los angeles born and raised performer doing burlesque for nearly 17 years now and this is a tale of october 2021 just out of the lot just coming out of lockdown times like we had spent so many months of our burlesque careers staying in the home recording videos and the world had just started to open back up again slowly but surely and i had a gig in october 2021 and i was so excited to be back to irl performing for a moment um so the plan was to cover for a friend of mine at this bar in venice it was a small cute little bar and they had a bar where you can dance on they had a tabletop where you can hang from, from the ceiling if you want it to be daring, or you can just stay on the floor and work the room, whatever, whatever.

But my friend was like, just you're covering for me.

It's quick in and out.

It'll be really easy.

Have so much fun.

I was like, great.

Mm-hmm

... we're eating food at a restaurant, and I brought up burlesque, I think, like, 'cause I was like, "Let me hold off and not say anything." I brought it up later, and he was like, "Oh, yeah, you do a storm act to AC/DC Thunderstruck." And I'm like, "Yeah." He's like, "Oh, I used to follow you, like, a long time ago, and then I unfollowed a bunch of people." And so I was like, "So the whole time I think you knew who I was."

Mm-hmm.

So then he's like, "We went to, we came to this park before on a date." So I'm like, "Oh, you've been to this park with another Black girl.

Okay, cool." And so anyway, end of the story, kind of sorta, he goes, "We walked to my car, and I offered to give her a ride back to her home, and we're sitting in the car, and she asked me randomly, 'Have you ever said the N-word before, listening, when you're rapping or singing music?'" And he paused.

And I go, "Oh, no, he hesitated." [laughs] I was like, "What is his answer gonna be?" And he's like, "Well, of course I say it, because the artist puts it in the song, so I'm gonna say it." And I was like, "Oh, God, okay." Like, at this point I'm looking for the bus stop or a car-

How did you come about getting into it?

I was obsessed with celebrity things in Los Angeles, like finding celebrity hotspots.

Before I turned 21, because 21 is the legal age for drinking and bar venturing.

And I found 40 Deuce in a magazine.

A lot of celebrities would go there.

And it was essentially a burlesque bar with live music.

And so the girls would hang from the ceiling on like pipes and do splits on the bar.

How long does it take to fully learn the dances?